I know better than to feed the concern trolls, I really do. But when the editors of the New York Times deem it incumbent upon themselves to give advice to the GOP, well… what’s a blogger to do but to pick up the feed bag?
So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, the editors of that fabulously money-losing and shrinking organization, the New York Times:
Ted Cruz, the newly elected Tea Party senator from Texas, embodies the rigidity the public grew to loathe in Congress’s last term. He is bursting with fervor to fight compromise and consensus-building in Washington wherever it is found. Unlike 85 percent of the Republicans in the Senate, he would have voted against the fiscal cliff deal. He says gun control is unconstitutional. Breaking even with conservative business leaders, he would have no qualms about using the debt ceiling as a hostage because he believes (falsely) that it would produce only a partial government shutdown and not default.
There’s an awful lot of red meat in that first paragraph. That is, if they believed in red meat. So let’s just say it’s some really hearty tofu. But what is it that makes Ted Cruz so fervent and rigid and uncompromising and other bad things? For starters, he wouldn’t have given in right away on the debt ceiling — which even John Boehner now said was a mistake. Cruz even has the audacity to agree with the Supreme Court that right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. And the kicker? Cruz has the ability to do simple arithmetic. Here’s how it goes.
The federal government is expected to collect about $2,900,000,000,002 this year. And it has debt obligations (“the vig,” in Chicago-speak) of about $246,000,000,000. Now, I’m no math whiz like Senator Cruz, but if I use my calculator to subtract the second great big number from the first great big number, I’m still $2,654,000,000,002 in the black. That leaves $2.654 trillion dollars for necessities like Obamaphones and shovel-ready green jobs.
But what would the Editors have the Republicans do? Let’s see:
The upcoming session will give Republican leaders a chance to ignore pressure from the right and begin working with Democrats. The tests are coming quickly: Will they block all gun-control proposals and a reasonable immigration plan? Will they force a government shutdown to resist new revenues and demand cuts to safety-net programs?
All I can say is: We can certainly hope so.
And now that I’m done feeding the concern troll for your enjoyment, all I ask in return is that somebody help shovel up the mess.
Help, I am trapped in the book of Ecclesiastics and I can’t get out. Truly there is nothing new under the sun. The WSJ carries a book review today of a memoire written by a survivor of the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror.
The review ends with the complaint that no one stepped up to stop the horror and death. Another prime example, as if we needed more, that once a society decides to go full on Godless heathen it has to bear the brunt of the folly, even the innocents.
But my neighbors want free stuff, so this next iteration ought to be fun.
If I max out my credit card, I don’t quit paying my mortgage. I don’t ask my banker for an increase in my limit, and if he tells me I need to make cuts in my spending, I don’t offer to cut out 25 cents per year, can I double my limit.
Contrary to Dem congressional belief, we do have a spending problem. If I put 40% of my household expenses on my credit card every month, it wouldn’t be long before I went bankrupt. Of course I can’t just print my own money.
I love how the NYT and other groups like to concern-troll the right, as though “we will like you only if you roll over for us” is really a political argument.
Somewhere, Otto von Bismarck is sharpening his sword. The NYT’s argument is the exact opposite of realpolitik.
Concern trolls? How long has that been a phrase? I love it!
The NYT isn’t EXACTLY a Concern Troll here. Usually Concern Trolls pretend to be a Conservative before bringing up “Concerns” about how bad it will be for Conservatives to not give in to Democrat positions. (The Talk Radio term would be a Seminar Caller, you know the one who opens by saying he’s a lifelong Republican before shilling for Gun Control or something.) But they ARE using pretty much the same tactic. It’s just that one can’t believe they are honestly concerned in the slightest.
I know that in their insular little lefty liberal progressive mindset the NYT thought that they were saying bad things about Ted Cruz, but what they said are Ted’s selling points; they’re not bugs, they’re features! I wish that we had 70 more just like him in the Senate!
Yeah, I’m sure people in Texas voted for Cruz because they believed he was gonna vote the way a bunch of crypto-fascists in mid-town Manhattan told him to.
You are missing the point. This is an effort to demonize Cruz ahead of time, to define him, before he can define himself. He should publicly demand an opportunity to respond in the same place in their pages. You gotta head off this stuff.
This is an effort to demonize Cruz ahead of time
Spot on. The NYT is leading the whole leftist MSM claque in negative campaigning against any conservatives who might bring well-articulated conservative principles into the next Presidential campaign. Such negative campaigning, disguised as ‘news’ and dispensed week by week, have had major effects on shifting public opinion against George Bush (six years of it!), Sarah Palin, the tea party, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney and Allan West, and they’re working on other targets of opportunity on a daily basis.
Anyone who shows any actual intent to derail the gravy train must be stopped at all costs.
Listening to organs like the New York Times, you’d think the debt ceiling is some outside force to be coped with in the least disruptive or inconvenient manner possible.
The funny thig is, I’m pretty sure that is what they think. As they demonize people like Cruz for honoring the spirit and intent of the debt ceiling, they show they have completely forgotten why it was created.